ERP Effects of Word Exposure and Orthographic Knowledge on Lexical Decisions in Spanish

Abstract

Orthographic knowledge is affected by language processing, which is associated with word exposure. This study used event-related potentials (ERP) to explore this association in Spanish-speaking adults with different levels of orthographic competence (High Spelling Skills: HSS; Low Spelling Skills: LSS) while they performed a lexical decision task on previously exposed words (1 or 5 times). Both groups benefited from the exposure rate, but HSS reached significantly higher correct and faster responses, particularly with repeated words. Word recognition potential (RP) amplitude was higher bilaterally in HSS group, especially with repeated words, while P220 was found to be right-lateralized and sensitive to word exposure. Also, the amplitude of P600 varied as a function of word exposure and positively correlated with reading speed. Results suggest that LSS group is less sensitive to word exposure and fails to automatize strategies to word recognition that affect reading fluency.

Frequency Effects on Spelling Error Recognition: An ERP Study

“…In most studies using pseudohomophones, phonological activation in visual word recognition and pseudohomophone effect have been associated with the N400 component, but not P300 (Kramer and Donchin, 1987;Bentin et al, 1999;Proverbio et al, 2004;Vissers et al, 2006;Briesemeister et al, 2009;González-Garrido et al, 2015;Costello et al, 2021). N400 has a larger amplitude for pseudohomophones than for words (Briesemeister et al, 2009;Hasko et al, 2013;González-Garrido et al, 2015). Misspelled words are similar to pseudohomophone stimuli; they are visually similar to correctly spelled words and are phonologically identical.…”

“…Barnea and Breznitz (1998) found longer and higher amplitudes of N400 during the phonological task (rhyme judgment) compared to the orthographic task (orthographic similarity/dissimilarity judgment). In most studies using pseudohomophones, phonological activation in visual word recognition and pseudohomophone effect have been associated with the N400 component, but not P300 (Kramer and Donchin, 1987;Bentin et al, 1999;Proverbio et al, 2004;Vissers et al, 2006;Briesemeister et al, 2009;González-Garrido et al, 2015;Costello et al, 2021). N400 has a larger amplitude for pseudohomophones than for words (Briesemeister et al, 2009;Hasko et al, 2013;González-Garrido et al, 2015).…”

“…The pseudohomophone effect was studied using ERP much less often than the frequency effect. This effect is primarily associated with phonological processing, which is found in the N400 component or even later in most studies when smaller negativity is related to higher activation of a particular phonological representation (Kramer and Donchin, 1987;Bentin et al, 1999;Proverbio et al, 2004;Vissers et al, 2006;Briesemeister et al, 2009;González-Garrido et al, 2015;Costello et al, 2021). N400 has a larger amplitude for pseudohomophones than for words (Briesemeister et al, 2009;Hasko et al, 2013;González-Garrido et al, 2015).…”

“…This effect is primarily associated with phonological processing, which is found in the N400 component or even later in most studies when smaller negativity is related to higher activation of a particular phonological representation (Kramer and Donchin, 1987;Bentin et al, 1999;Proverbio et al, 2004;Vissers et al, 2006;Briesemeister et al, 2009;González-Garrido et al, 2015;Costello et al, 2021). N400 has a larger amplitude for pseudohomophones than for words (Briesemeister et al, 2009;Hasko et al, 2013;González-Garrido et al, 2015). However, the ERP results show that phonological activation may occur at an early stage of visual word recognition as early as 150 ms (associated with the P2 component) after stimulus onset and may influence lexical access (Braun et al, 2009;Zhang et al, 2009).…”

“…To generate pseudohomophones, both one and two letters of the base word were changed (e.g., Briesemeister et al, 2009;Costello et al, 2021); these were only vowels (e.g., Vissers et al, 2006) or vowels and consonants at the same time (e.g., Briesemeister et al, 2009). Only González-Garrido et al (2015) mentioned that the incentives used are the most frequent orthographic errors in Spanish. Some authors pay attention to the fact that their pseudohomophones are not orthographically similar to words (e.g., Newman and Connolly, 2004) to minimize the contribution of orthography to their processing.…”